“Purity and Security: Towards a Cultural History of Plexiglas,” Places Journal (December 2020).

“Purity and Security: Towards a Cultural History of Plexiglas,” Places Journal (December 2020).
“The Housing System: State of Good Repair,” Architectural League of New York, May 2, 2019
The Housing System was a six-program series on pressing issues at the intersection of design, policy, and politics in housing in spring 2019.
Housing policy, arguably, and architecture, certainly, typically emphasize the new, but from the perspectives of equity, sustainability, and plain practicality, we should be paying more attention to the buildings we already have. The first event in the series focused on what it takes to maintain, steward, and improve our existing housing stock and the range of labor, skills, and expertise needed to make that happen.
Multidisciplinary scholar Shannon Mattern outlines the broad significance and implications of maintenance, particularly given the current fetishization of innovation. Laurie Kerr, an expert in urban sustainability policy, provides an overview of New York Cityâs new building energy guidelines and the need to improve existing multifamily housingâincluding the particular environmental harm of steam heat. Resident manager Jennifer Davis discusses her approach to âholistic maintenanceâ in the 159-unit converted warehouse building that she oversees. Architect Mitch McEwen questions renovation as part of our housing crisis, advocating instead for reconstruction, reparations, and repair using examples from her work in Detroit. Mattern moderates a conversation about agency and labor in maintenance, whether architects can design with repair and care in mind, and more.
The Housing System: State of Good Repair from Architectural League of New York on Vimeo.
Graduate seminar elective; undergraduate lecture course
It wasnât long ago that the digital vanguard was prophesying the arrival of the âpaperless office,â the death of the book, and the âdematerializationâ of our physical bodies and environments. Despite those proclamations, we have not traded in our corporeality for virtualityânor have we exchanged all of our brick-and-mortar edifices and cities for virtual versions. In fact, many architects, urban planners, sociologists, psychologists, geographers, and scholars and practitioners in related disciplines argue that as our media have become ever more virtual, the design and development of our physical spacesâthrough architecture, landscape design, and urban and regional planningâhave become even more important. If our media and our built spaces do not follow the same evolutionary paths, what is the relationship between these two fields of production and experience?
This course examines the dynamic and complex relationship between media and architecture. We will look at architecture as media, symbols and embodiments of particular ideas and valuesâand at the impact that communication media have had on the practice of architecture and the way we experience our built environments. After equipping ourselves with a basic design vocabulary and a selection of relevant theoretical frameworks, we will trace the contemporaneous development of media and architecture from the scribal era in the Middle Ages to the digital era of today and tomorrow. Along the way, weâll explore design, history, criticism, and theory from media and design historians and theorists, media makers, and designers. In the process, we will find that underlying and inspiring these various systems of cultural production throughout history are certain foundational elementsâparticular value systems and kinds of experience, cultural perspectives and worldviews.
Spring 2012: Syllabus | Course Website
Spring 2009: Syllabus | Course Blog
Fall 2007 (Undergraduate University Lecture Course): Syllabus | Scavenger Hunt
Spring 2005:Â Syllabus
I collaborated with the Architectural League of New York and the Center for an Urban Future to organize a design study that identifies the challenges that New Yorkâs branch libraries face, and proposes design solutions to stimulate conversation about means to support the cityâs three library systems and the vital services they provide. In consulted on the request for qualifications; attended research meetings; served on the jury that chose the five finalist teams from among 45 applicants; delivered presentations on current library design trends; consulted with library leader Nate Hill about experimentation in library programming and design (our interview was published in Urban Omnibus); contributed to the development of the teamsâ design challenges; attended review meetings and served as a critic at the mid-process review.
The findings of the study were presented in a public forum at the Japan Society on December 4, 2014; lots of city officials, designers, and library directors from across the country attended. The design teams again presented their proposals in a more design-focused â i.e., less policy-oriented â forum at The New School on January 12, 2015; I moderated that event. And the following summer I was commissioned to write a reflective essay about the process: my âMiddlewhere: The Landscapes of Library Logistics,â which again appeared in Urban Omnibus, examined the critical links between the nodes our regional library systems.
You can find more info here.
I was excited to be invited to visit Smith College in April 2015 to talk about library design. Just a week before my visit Smith announced that Maya Lin (whose mother is an alum) and Shepley Bulfinch would be partnering on the design of their new library building. I gave my talk to a packed room â quite a heartening turnout, for which Iâm very grateful, and which speaks volumes (ha! a library joke!) to the communityâs commitment to the library. You can find my slides and text here.
I was honored to serve as one of the closing keynotes at the Rare Book and Manuscript Librariansâ pre-conference at the 2014. American Library Association conference. I spoke about design and aesthetic experience in archives and special collections. You can find my talk and slides here.
I was delighted to be invited to deliver one of the closing plenary talks at the 2014 preconference for the American Library Association’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, on the theme of “Retrofit,” in Las Vegas. I was joined on the plenary panel by Jim Reilly, Founder and Director of the Image Permanence Institute, and Emily Gore, Content Director of the Digital Public Library of America, both of whom gave fantastic presentations. Unfortunately, we had far too little time for discussion.
What follows are my slides and the text of my talk:
In Rare Fashion: Special Collections Infrastructural Aesthetics
I come from Brooklyn, the land of archival aesthetics. I realize this is kind of old news, but those of us who live the antiquarian lifestyle are quite happy to be behind the curve. [S2] Weâre committed to canning, [S3] letterpress, [CLICK] suspenders, [CLICK] and classic cocktails. [S4] We mix our vinyl with taxidermy. [S5] This coming weekend weâre opening a new museum, Morbid Anatomy, thatâs dedicated to spirit photography, embalming, and 19th-century medical and mourning practices. [S6: Blank] Weâre into performing our preservation, too; we can make anything âheritageâ or artisanal â [S7] including our faces. (I should note that recent research has shown that [S8] we may recently have reached âpeak beard.â)
[S9]Rare book and manuscript libraries certainly have their own aesthetic of ârarityâ â but itâs not often manifested in the same way that we Brooklynites do it, [S10] with reclaimed wood and Edison bulbs. In a 2007 article in RBM, Gerald Beasley described what one might see if one approached the archive as an aesthetic place:
[S11]rows and rows of acid-free boxes and acid-free folders on inert gray metal shelving in climate-controlled storage⌠â not what you call âeye candy.â âŚ[W]hat goes on inside those boxes is often a far more riotous mix of material culture than anything a row of books or periodicals can provide. But in marketing terms, archives in storage suffer from an image problem.[1]
In my comments here Iâm not going to focus on the [S12] riotous content of those boxes and booksâ on the woodcuts and gold leaf embellishments and marginalia on their enclosed pages; or on the stories and arguments and information conveyed through their words and images. Andrew Staufferâs beautiful plenary talk from Wednesday acknowledged much that can be gained from the textual and material-aesthetic dimensions of archival artifacts.
[S13]Instead, Iâm going to focus on the boxes themselves, and that inert gray metal shelving â and the study tables and the conservation labs and vitrines and online catalogues and drably lit rooms â all the architectural and technological infrastructures that enable archives and rare book and manuscript libraries to do what they do. For the sake of brevity, Iâll heretofore lump these spaces together and call them âspecial collections.â Iâll argue that even the seemingly anti-aesthetic aspects of the special collection actually do â or can â embody an aesthetic, an experience, that enhances the various programmatic functions the institution serves; and can even serve as a means of advocacy for those functions. These aesthetics can, as John Overholt argued in last springâs issue of RBM, serve to âdemystify special collections, to convey the message: âPlease touch. This is here for youâ â and, I would add, this is how we made it possible for this to be here for you, to touch and read and listen to and learn from.[2]
[S14]By âaesthetics,â I donât mean beauty or sublimity, or a taste-based assessment of âlook and feel.â I mean sensory contemplation, which is not separate from or opposed to the realm of the intellectual. Rather, aesthetics are an integral part of the teaching and research â as well as the processing and preservation, cataloguing and curating â that take place in special collections. We need to acknowledge these aesthetics of experience, for both patrons and staff â as well as both on-site and online communities, both the local and distributed.
There are cases in which intellectual labor and aesthetic experience are balkanized. [S15] This was made especially clear to me several years ago, when I was working on an essay about the 2006 renovation â a controversial retrofitting â of Alvar Aaltoâs Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvardâs Lamont Library. [Warning: this account will involve an embarrassing number of âair quotes.â] The room was founded with a gift from Harry Harkness Flager in honor of his friend and former Columbia professor George E. Woodberry, who aimed to afford undergraduates an opportunity to experience the âdelight and entertainmentâ of poetry outside the âchore of the curriculum,â where, under the influence of new approaches to criticism, poetry was increasingly analyzed with a ârigorous empiricismâ and mined for âfacts.â [S16] My study examined how Aaltoâs forward-thinking and fluid design â a humanistic variation on Modern design â accommodated and symbolized the myriad material forms of poetry represented in the collection: manuscripts, little magazines, records, printed books, even poetry-inspired artwork. One of the reviewers of my article, however, claimed that my focus on âdelightâ and âentertainmentâ precluded poetryâs âsignificanceâ; to highlight aesthetic experience was to suggest that poetry is devoid of âintellectual or political engagement,â and to fail to acknowledge that âpoets even think rationally.â
Of course in my revision I took great pains to demonstrate that feeling â even, heaven forbid, pleasure and delight â is not inimical to rational thought. [S17] I also had to spend some time explaining, contra many preservationistsâ claims, why computers werenât superfluous technologies that could be moved off-site to as to preserve the roomâs classic aesthetic. At just over 1000 square feet the Poetry Room was the smallest media space Iâve ever worked with, and its focus on poetry made its mission and audience particularly delimited. But even this small case study illustrates what Iâve tried to do with all of my research on media architectures: [S18] that is, to demonstrate how entwined infrastructures â architectural, technological, social, etc. â embody certain politics and epistemologies. And this embodiment happens in large part through their aesthetics.You see here a related piece I published a couple weeks ago.
[S19]Francois Blouin acknowledges in a 2010 issue of RBM that many notable special collections are often sited in privileged places, apart from more pedestrian collections, and housed in monumental spaces, which connect contemporary researchers to the âenduring scholarly valuesâ and research traditions they embody. Yet he claims âthe importance of these settings to scholarship has seldom been cause for much reflection.â[3]
[S20]I noticed that what seems to be a key text in the design of archival and special collections, Michele Pacifico and Thomas Wilstedâs 2009 Archival and Special Collections Facilities, frames the special collection as an architecture primarily for objects. There are chapters on the building site, environmental control, fire protection, security, materials and finishes, storage equipment, prohibited materials, etc.[4] A paper presented at the 2012 IFLA conference acknowledged that the 2009 study needed to expanded â but the proposed areas of development included sustainable design; environmental standards for storage, including design for buildings in extreme climates; planning for disasters; and the design implications of electronic records and digitization.[5] Aside from considering accessibility issues, once again very little attention seems to be paid to the aesthetics of experience, both for patrons and staff. [S21]The recent translation of Arlette Fargeâs The Allure of the Archives has attracted a great deal of attention precisely because she addresses both the delights and miseries of peopleâs embodied, multisensory interaction with collection materials and the collectionâs physical space.[6]
[S22]In the time that remains, Iâll discuss the aesthetics of five intertwined infrastructures that compose the special collection, and many of which have undergone recent retrofits in light of technological and curricular and pedagogical change. Iâll offer some brief comments regarding their political and epistemological significance, as well as their potential to serve as tools for pedagogy or advocacy for the importance of special collections. There are certainly more than five infrastructures I could talk about, but, in the interest of time, I’ll need to limit my focus. This means, unfortunately, that much is left out, including perhaps the one area of special collections whose aesthetics are most commonly recognized — namely, the reading room. You could turn to Farge’s text for a discussion of reading-room aesthetics.
[S23] I’ll start with the aesthetics of storage infrastructures. Collection storage has long been a central design feature â there never seems to enough of it â and itâs often an aesthetic focus for libraries. [S24]Storage spaces played a central role in the controversy of the planned renovation of the NYPLâs Schwartzman Library. Iâve written about a few other designs, [S25]including the 40-anniversary retrofit of Louis Kahnâs library for Philips Exeter Academy and [S26]Rem Koolhaasâs 2004 Seattle Public Library, with its book spiral, that prioritize storage of the collection. More recently, [S27]TAX arquitecturaâs 2006 Biblioteca Jose Vasconcelos in Mexico City and [S28]MRVDVâs Book Mountain, which opened just two years ago in a town in the Netherlands, continue to fetishize the stacks. We see similar focus on the aesthetics of storage in some special collections, including [S29]Dartmouthâs Rauner Special Collections, a project completed in 2000; and of course its formal predecessor, the [S30]Beinecke at Yale. The epistemological implications of this aesthetic are obvious: these architectures put on display, and make empirical, if not navigable, the wealth of knowledge that the collection represents.
[S31]Even behind-the-scenes storage spaces â those acid-free boxes grey shelves â have aesthetic appeal. Many conceptual artists have worked with what art historian Hal Foster calls the âaesthetics of administration.â [S32]Thereâs also been a lot of fantastic recent scholarship on the history of paperwork and filing â [S33]I wrote something last year, too â that attests to the deeper social and cultural implications of back-stage storage systems. [S34]And in my classes on archives and mapping, I often organize field trips in which we take these media studies and design students behind the scenes at various museums and archives and special collections. Amidst the beige and grey, the students not only begin to grasp the scope of an institutionâs collection and the breadth of formats it contains, but they also begin to appreciate how value is attached to those materials â and just how much of it lives only in material form, and will likely not be digitized any time soon.
Even as collections move off-site, Iâve noticed continuing fascination with the aesthetics of storage. There are several recent videos, including some expertly produced documentaries â featuring the Bodleian, [S35]the Harvard Depository, North Carolina Stateâs new Hunt Library, the University of Chicagoâs new Mansueto Library, [S36]and the Corbis Image Vault inside Iron Mountain, a former limestone mine in Western Pennsylvania â that aestheticize remote storage and automated retrieval. I situate these projects in relation to growing interest in the materiality of information and media archaeology. We can also position these âstorage storiesâ within within a larger body of work that attempts to make material, empirical, phenomenological â and thereby comprehensible â a lot of behind-the-scenes informational experiences. [S37]Itâs part of the trend toward âmaking visible the invisible,â calling attention to the distribution of information, which has tended to be eclipsed by interest in production and consumption.
[S38] Second, the aesthetics of conservation, also typically behind-the-scenes. But, again, when Iâve taken my students to various institutions, theyâve been fascinated by the intricate, embodied labor involved in conservation. [S39] At the New York City Municipal Archives, we watched a photography conservator peel apart 80-year-old homicide scene photos from the NYPD; we watched a print conservator âfloatâ a 400-year-old Dutch document in a tub of wood pulp; we [S40] we observed a staff member custom-build an acid-free box for a rusty switchblade found amongst the police departmentâs records. The organic materiality of media is quite a revelation to many of these supposed âdigital natives.â [S41] And even the material work of preserving the digital â of practicing digital forensics, making sure to regularly spin the back-up hard drives, or reformatting video archives to keep pace with evolving best practices â is illuminating for students to observe. These backstage activities have such great pedagogical potential â and thereâs demonstrated interest. Whatâs more, making this activity visible has the potential to manifest, and thereby advocate for, the critical, specialized work that takes place in special collections. [S42] Not all institutions have beautiful conservation facilities like the Morgan Libraryâs Thaw Conservation Center, but there have to be ways to allow different publics to experience the aesthetics, and thus the politics, of the work of conservation.
[S43] Third, the aesthetics of exhibition. This may be the most obvious example: the curation of special collectionsâ materials is intended primarily to create an aesthetic frame for those materials, and to render them experiential. In recent renovation projects several institutions have added exhibition space or upgraded their exhibition areas. [S44] The Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale repositioned its exhibition spaces outside the special collections âsecurity perimeter,â so as to potentially draw in visitors who wouldnât otherwise be compelled to enter.[7] Such exhibitions not only highlight collection materials, but they also have the potential to model scholarly methodology and intellectual frameworks; they can show students how to put objects in conversation with one another and make inferences or draw conclusions from historical texts and primary resources.
Of course putting those special collections materials in a vitrine or display case typically emphasizes the visual at the expense of the other senses, and thereby limits the pedagogical âchannelsâ that we can use to teach with or through these materials. [S45] There are other special collections infrastructures â classrooms and programing spaces, for instance â that allow for different aesthetic and epistemological experiences. These spaces â which constitute our fourth aesthetic infrastructure â [S46] create opportunities for the handling and activation of materials, and offer the ability to bring those materials alive in group settings, via a variety of pedagogical techniques, or perhaps through performances. Ideally, careful attention is paid to furnishings and lighting and display technology that lend themselves to flexible use. In some cases, however, as we see here, teachers simply commandeer whatever space they have for communal use.
Yaleâs Arts Library, as part of their renovation, also integrated a classroom, which grew their instruction program over 900 percent. Years earlier, the Beinecke Library underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation, which involved converting conventional shelving into compact storage, and transforming some storage space into classrooms and a [S47] Digital Studio. As Ellen Cordes wrote, âThis choice to build classrooms in preference to both storage space and a conservation studio is a very concrete demonstration of the libraryâs commitment to access, and not just to the preservation of collections.â[8] The library hosted a record number of classes in 2004-5 and [S48]launched a bunch of extra-curricular programs, including non-credit classes, lectures, musical performances, and poetry events inspired by the collections.
Making space in the special collection for greater public access â both for a greater variety of publics, and a greater variety of aesthetic experiences â opens up the collection to innovative uses and unanticipated applications. This is in keeping with John Overholtâs proposal that the future of special collections will encompass both âdisintermediationâ â the collectionsâ âunmooringâ from librariansâ âorganizational and interpretive contexts â as well as their creative âtransformation.â[9] [S49] The Woodberry Poetry Room, for instance, has become home to a variety of programs in which the collection is activated. When poet Christina Davis became curator of the room in 2008, she introduced group listening sessions and a works-in-progress series, among other events. When these open events are not in session, the uses of the room range from âquiet study, perusal of literary magazines, the research of rare material (broadsides, manuscripts, chapbooks), listening to archival recordings,⌠and (yes) writing poems.â[10] âThe latter is, to my mind,â Davis told me, âthe surest sign of the success of the room: It means that scholarship and the art-form it hopes to perpetuate have come full circle.
[S50]And over the past few days at this conference weâve seen myriad other creative uses to which special collections materials have been put â everything from Burroughâs Reality Studio to Booktraces to Tumblrs and student Omeka exhibitions and Neatline timelines to physical, on-site exhibitions. These transformations might take shape within the physical confines of the special collections space, or without. And the fact that, increasingly, interactions with special collections do happen outside the facilities themselves highlights the centrality of a [S51]fifth aesthetic infrastructure: the digital interface. The aesthetics of the special collections interface â in the form of online catalogues, finding aids, and digital exhibitions â has received continued attention, particularly from institutions like the University of Michigan, the NYPL, Princeton, and Brigham Young. [S52] Interface aesthetics, and how we critique them, were our chief concerns in a Digital Archives graduate studio I taught this past spring at The New School [S53].
Given the centrality of place to this panel, we might wonder what distinctive conceptions of place these intertwined physical and virtual infrastructures represent.[11] Weâve seen some attempts to [S54] recreate our physical infrastructures online â to simulate stack views and virtual shelves; or to digitally âmirrorâ our on-site exhibitions â but this might not make sense when patrons wonât likely ever encounter special collections materials on those insert grey shelves, and some might not encounter those materials in-person at all. Why adopt these skeuomorphic tropes, why adhere to the âeach book (or box) its place on the shelfâ structure, when the physical and virtual are separate, if intertwined, places, with distinctive, if mutually informing, aesthetics?
[S55]Perhaps one way to reconceive âplaceâ in the special collections interface would be to acknowledge the objectâs provenance, which has been a recurring theme in our discussions over the past few days. Or, in the case of distributed, federated collections, like the DPLA, place might refer, as Blouin recommends, to an objectâs institutional home. Highlighting these distributed institutional responsibilities again serves to advocate for the integral and complementary roles that different institutions play in maintaining our seemingly seamless, placeless web of content.
[S56]We need to acknowledge these myriad, intertwined interfaces and their aesthetics, because we inevitably need to negotiate among them. Those negotiations are driven by space and budget limitations, and stakeholdersâ diverse interests. Prioritizing one â as Beinecke did with spaces of instruction, for example â usually means compromising on others, like storage or conservation. Yet itâs important to recognize that we neednât undertake expensive architectural renovations or massive technological overhauls in order to retrofit our institutionsâ functionality. [S57]A retrofit can involve new, creative, resourceful, economic ways of framing aesthetic experience â physical and/or virtual; small interventions, kits of parts â to accommodate new pedagogies, new approaches to scholarship, and new politics of knowledge.[12]
[1] Gerald Beasley, âCuratorial Crossover: Building Library, Archives, and Museum Collectionsâ RBM 8:1 (Spring 2007): 23.
[2] John Overholt, âFive Theses on the Future of Special Collectionsâ RBM 14:1 (Spring 2013): 15-20.
[3] Francis X. Blouin, Jr., âThoughts on Special Collections and Our Research Communitiesâ RBM 11:1 (Spring 2010): 25. The 2014 World Library and Information Congress promises to feature a session focusing on âinnovative design solutions for the use, presentation, teaching and exhibition of special collections as well as address appropriate security issues and storage facilitiesâ; see âCall for Papers: Session Title: Special Places for Special Collections: for 80th World Library and Information Congress, Lyon France, August 16-22, 2014â: http://blogs.ifla.org/library-buildings-and-equipment/2013/11/29/call-for-papers-session-title-special-places-for-special-collections/
[4] Michele F. Pacifico & Thomas P. Wilsted, Eds., Archival and Special Collections Facilities: Guidelines for Archivists, Librarians, Architects, and Engineers (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2009).
[5] Diane Vogt-OâConnor, âArchival and Special Collections Facilities: Guidelines for Archivists, Librarians, Architects, and Engineers,â Helsinkis: IFLA – International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 2012: http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla78/programme-and-proceedings-full-printable.htm
[6] Arlette Farge, The Allure of the Archives, Trans. Thomas Scott-Railton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).
[7] Jae Jennifer Rossman âBuild It and S/He Will Come: A Reflection on Five Years in a Purpose-Built Special Collections Spaceâ RBM 14:2 (Fall 2013): 111-120.
[8] Ellen R. Cordes, âA Response to Traisterâ RBM 7:2 (Fall 2006): 107.
[9] Overholt: 17-18.
[10] C. Davis, personal communication, October 1, 2009.
[11] Beasley acknowledges that, while these distributed digital resources do enhance access, there are certain aesthetic experiences that they preclude, including the objectâs âprovenance, its design, its weight, its size, its color under different light, its smell, its texture, its material, its watermarks, its structure, its binding, its evidence of age, its evidence of use, its evidence of misuse.â Sure, you could create metadata for all these variables â but why not also consider the distinctive affordances and limitations of this digital infrastructure, and allow the digital surrogate to drive patrons to the physical object for the fully embodied aesthetic experience?
[12] This year Iâm partnering with the Architectural League of New York and the Center for an Urban Future to organize a design study of New Yorkâs three public library systemsâ branch libraries; weâre encouraging our competing design teams to consider modular âkits of partsâ that can transform the aesthetics and functionality of branches without requiring major renovations and budgets that the libraries simply donât have.
I had the pleasure of reviewing Roman Mars’s fabulous 99% Invisible radio show and podcast for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. The June issue — with my (six-month-old!) review in it, alongside some great articles about historical reading rooms and ancient “talking columns” — is out. You can find a pre-copy-edited draft of the review, with lots of embedded audio, here.
âTuning into the Invisible: Roman Marsâs 99% Invisible,â Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 73:2 (June 2014) [draft with images + sound files]
âAnimated Spaces: Experience and Context in Interaction and Architectural Design Exhibitions,â Senses & Society 9:2 (Spring 2014): 131-150
on designing exhibitions for multisensorial experience